Page 11 - AfrOil Week 11 2023

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

Even after weather conditions improved and capable of liquefying 71mn tpy of gas in total.
water levels rose, leading the venture to re-open According to Kpler, NLNG exported
the plant, capacity utilisation remained low. In 14.61mn tpy of LNG in 2022, down from a peak
January, NLNG operated at just 53% of its capac- of 21.33mn tpy in 2019. Subasic attributed the
ity of 22.5mn tonnes per year (tpy), and the vol- decline to a “general lack of investment, main-
ume of LNG exported from Nigeria to the world tenance, prolonged flooding periods and more
market amount to only around 1mn tonnes. recently pipeline vandalism in Nigeria.”
Conditions did improve in February, though, She also told Natural Gas Intelligence that
according to Ana Subasic, an analyst for the these problems were affecting supplies of
Brussels-based data and analytics firm Kpler. both natural gas and associated gas, saying:
She informed Natural Gas Intelligence earlier “Human-imposed sabotage and theft have
this week that NLNG had seen average utilisa- been affecting the feed gas supply of Nigerian
tion rates rise to 63% in February 2023, marking associated gas, directly linked with Nigerian oil
the first rise in four months. This pushed Nige- production.”
rian LNG exports up to 1.07mn tonnes in the NLNG has been in production for more than
same month, she stated. 20 years and is Nigeria’s sole exporter of LNG.
Subasic also indicated that additional Equity in the consortium is split between Nige-
improvements were anticipated in March. rian National Petroleum Co. Ltd (NNPCL),
Kpler expects NLNG to turn out 1.22mn tonnes with 49%; Shell (UK), with 25.6%; TotalEnergies
of LNG in the third month of the year, she said. (France), with 15%; and Eni (Italy), with 10.4%.
(That would be equivalent to nearly 72% of the State-owned NNPCL serves as operator of the
plant’s design capacity.) consortium.
It is too early to determine whether Kpler’s The group brought its first production train
March prediction is correct. However, the Feb- on stream in 1999 and now has six production
ruary figure indicates that NLNG’s utilisation trains capable of turning out a total of 22.5mn
rates are already higher than average for Africa. tpy. The complex’s installed capacity is set to rise
Data collected by the Gas Exporting Countries to 30mn tpy as a result of the Train 7 project,
Forum (GECF) indicate that capacity utilisation which calls for building a seventh production
now averages 58% among the continent’s other train that can turn out 4.2mn tpy, as well as the
five LNG producers – Algeria, Angola, Came- debottlenecking of existing trains, which will
roon, Egypt and Equatorial Guinea, which are add another 3.4mn tpy of capacity. ™

Africa Oil Corp. publishes new

reserve estimate for Block 3B/4B

SOUTH AFRICA AFRICA Oil Corp. (Canada) on March 8 issued
a new reserve estimate for Block 3B/4B, located
offshore South Africa in the Orange basin, fol-
lowing an independent review of its competent
person’s report by RISC Advisory (UK).
In a statement, Africa Oil Corp. noted that
RISC Advisory had carried out the review in line
with the relevant Canadian regulatory stand-
ards. After reviewing the prospective resources
of the 24 exploration prospects at Block 3B/4B
and assessing the likelihood of success, it said,
the consultancy estimates that the licence area
contains approximately 4bn barrels of oil equiv-
alent (boe) in total unrisked gross P50 prospec-
tive resources.
RISC Advisory has also calculated the prob-
ability of success at 11-39% over the prospects
that have been identified within the block, it Block 3B/4B is offshore in the Orange basin (Image: Africa Oil Corp.)
reported.
The inventory of prospects evaluated by Namibian section of the Orange basin, includ-
RISC was identified via the reprocessing of ing the Venus field discovered by TotalEnergies
2,200 square km of 3D seismic data, plus aware- (France) and the Graff, La Rona and Jonker field
ness of the geology of play-opening finds in the discovered by Shell (UK).

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